The Egyptian government’s decision to investigate pro-democracy NGOs
for criminal activity and the subsequent imposition of travel bans on
democracy workers didn’t just ruin the plans of the six Americans now
stuck there—it sparked a severe crisis in relations between Cairo and
Washington. But how the Obama administration responds hinges on a
question that it feels has not yet been answered: Is Egypt’s current
government deliberately instigating conflict, or just incapable of
managing its own affairs?

Though Congress has been pushing to
withhold some portion of the
annual foreign military funding—currently at $1.3 billion per year—
that the U.S. has given Egypt since 1987, the White House has been
understandably cautious. It’s not just that the White House is
hesitant to lose good relations with the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces (SCAF), the military junta that has ruled Egypt since Hosni
Mubarak’s ouster last February. The real issue is that the Obama
administration doesn’t yet believe that the SCAF is directly
responsible for the inquisition against the NGOs, ascribing blame
instead to Egyptian government officials whose actions are supposedly
beyond the SCAF’s legitimate control. There won’t be a clear response
from the White House until it has determined to its satisfaction
whether Cairo has been acting maliciously, or just
incompetently.

Washington isn’t the only place where this
question is being asked.
The question vexes practically everyone with an interest in Egypt—
Egyptians most of all. In the aftermath of a recent massacre at a
soccer game in Port Said, in which 73 people were killed, Egyptians
were deeply divided over whom to blame. Egypt’s youth protesters,
including many of the forces that catalyzed the January 2011 revolt
that toppled Mubarak, argued that the SCAF had orchestrated the
violence. “They are using the same scenario that Mubarak was trying
to threaten us last year, when he said either me or chaos,” Shadi El-
Ghazali Harb, a leader in the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, told
me. “In the previous match, the [fans] were chanting messages against
the SCAF, so it was a punishment for them as well.” As proof of the
SCAF’s direct instigation of the massacre, the youth activists noted
that the gates that normally separated the two teams’ fans from one
another were left open, while the exit gates had been welded shut,
trapping those fleeing the onslaught. Moreover, activists observed
that Port Said’s governor and security chief were conspicuously
absent from the match. “They always attend such matches,” said
Harb.

Others, however, blamed local security forces. In a
statement
following the assault, the Muslim Brotherhood didn’t denounce the
SCAF—they called on it for help, asking it “to address the
involvement of the police apparatus that could have prevented this
disaster, but instead contented itself by acting as a spectator.”
Meanwhile, a parliamentary fact-finding committee, headed by an MP
from the Salafist Nour Party, blamed local security authorities in
Port Said and the Egyptian Football Authority (EFA), noting that the
EFA, “did not perform thorough searches and allowed fans holding
solid objects, lasers and weapons to enter the stadium.” The
parliament’s subsequent efforts to hold the government accountable
largely absolved the SCAF.

The debate over the prosecution of
pro-democratic NGOs follows the
exact same pattern. On one hand, there is ample evidence of the
SCAF’s direct involvement in this crackdown. When Egypt’s public
prosecution office first raided the NGOs on December 29, military
personnel reportedly backed the operation. “It was organized and in
favor of polishing the image of the army in front of the people, so
everyone feels scared and feels that they cannot live without them,”
said Hossam Eldin Ali, director of the Egyptian Democratic Academy.
Moreover, the state-run media—which falls under the SCAF’s control—
has repeatedly supported the raids. In this vein, the top headline in
Tuesday’s edition of the official daily Al-Ahram read “American
Funding Aims to Spread Chaos in Egypt.” Finally, after the initial
raid, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who chairs the SCAF,
reportedly promised U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that the
targeted NGOs would be permitted to reopen—thus implying the SCAF’s
authority over the situation.

But there are also good reasons to
doubt the SCAF’s direct
culpability. For starters, the investigations followed from
complaints made by Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul
Nega, one of the government’s few holdovers from the Mubarak era.
Abul Nega has long demanded that her ministry have oversight over
NGOs, and she was quick to express anger when, shortly after last
year’s revolt, Washington gave approximately $54 million to pro-
democracy groups unregistered with the government. It’s not far-
fetched to believe that Abul Nega would have pursued the matter
without consulting other members of the government. After all, Abul
Nega takes pride in provoking confrontation with Washington, and
recently called American criticisms of her actions “a medal on my
chest.” The SCAF, meanwhile, has asked her to dial back her
rhetoric.

Now that investigations are underway, however, the
SCAF says that it
cannot legitimately intervene without undermining the Egyptian
justice system, flawed though it may be. In defending that position,
the SCAF cites the letter of U.S. policy. The most recent conditions
on foreign military funding to Egypt, which was signed into law in
December, require the government to support “due process of the law.”
The SCAF now argues that stopping the investigations would be
tantamount to undermining that provision.

Ultimately, most of
the SCAF’s explanations amount to mere
obfuscation. Even if it cannot interfere with the investigation into
NGOs for which Abul Nega advocated, the very fact that it has
retained a notorious anti-American official as Minister of
International Cooperation demonstrates the military’s malice. “[Abul
Nega] is the point man,” said U.S. Copts Association president
Michael Meunier, who has also been prevented from leaving Egypt. “The
regime since 2004 has been using Fayza to point at the U.S. … [She]
could have been removed any time.” Indeed, Egypt’s cabinet has been
reshuffled three times over the past twelve months—and Abul Nega has
been among the few constants.

In the end, an evil SCAF and an
incompetent SCAF yield the same
outcome: rising tensions between Washington and Cairo, and an
Egyptian government that continues to feed its people the myth that
U.S.-funded organizations are fomenting local chaos. Of course, given
the geopolitical centrality of Egypt to Middle Eastern affairs,
Washington still needs a working relationship with Egypt’s military.
But the SCAF’s lack of discipline, or lack of common sense, has
undermined the value of this relationship significantly. Whether the
SCAF is wickedly targeting pro-democratic NGOs or simply unable to
stop others from doing so, one thing ought to be clear: Washington’s
relationship with it is no longer worth $1.3 billion.

Eric
Trager is the Ira Weiner Fellow at The Washington Institute for
Near East Policy.